State’s first NIA police station to come up in city

In what could speed-up investigations into terror cases, the city is set to get its first National Investigation Agency (NIA) police station, home minister RR Patil announced on Tuesday.

The state government is also following up on the proposal sent to the Centre to expedite the process of banning alleged terror outfits Abhinav Bharat and Sanatan Sanstha, Patil said.

“Whenever there is a terror-related incident in the state, the case first gets registered with the local state police and is then sent to the NIA for further investigation. This slows down the probe, so it is better if these cases are directly registered with the NIA police station, so that they can start investigations directly” said Patil on Tuesday.

A home department official said that both the 2006 and the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast cases are being investigated by the NIA.

The NIA presently has a small office in Mumbai but doesn’t have enough officials posted here to carry out investigations.

In the event of a terror-related incident or bomb blast, officials have to be flown-in from Delhi, the official said.

With regard to the status on banning Abhinav Bharat and Sansthan Sanstha, the home minister said: “After the members of both these outfits were found guilty in bomb blast cases related to Malegaon and Goa, we sent a proposal to the Centre to ban them. The central government will take the decision when the time is right.”